World Health Day – Celebrating The Amazing Dogs That Help Treat Diabetes

World Health Day is celebrated today (7 April).

Each year a theme is selected that highlights a priority area of public health, and this year that theme is diabetes.

To highlight this we thought we would take a moment to celebrate the exceptional work of the countless service dogs across the globe that make a real difference to the lives of their diabetes suffering owners.

“5 minutes before I took this picture we were all asleep. No alarms were going off, no one was checking blood, no one was thinking about diabetes, and it’s in those moments when our guards are down, when we are just living life, when we let our minds drift from diabetes, that it has the upper hand-and things can get scary very fast…but thankfully we have a Jedi.”

She goes on to explain how Jedi jumped on top of her to wake her up.

The dog then alerted her to Luke’s condition by bowing — a gesture he uses to indicate low blood-sugar levels. (He raises his paw to indicate higher levels, Nuttall told CNN.)

Dorrie tested Luke’s blood and saw that his levels were falling fast despite his continuous glucose monitor showing he was OK. Now wide-awake and fully aware that her son’s blood levels were bordering on critical, she was able to act and to give him the injections that he required.

The Nuttall family adopted Jedi when Luke was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of two.

Within her Facebook post, Luke’s mother finishes by saying:

“Amidst a disease that does everything in its power to make life so much harder, this is a picture of loyalty and love and perseverance. A reminder that we will not let diabetes win, that we will never give up, and that we will always fight for our children.”

And this eloquently sums up just how important diabetes service dogs are, and the major life change that they represent to long-time diabetes sufferers and their families.